Portrait of a Noble Jesuit

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I have always had a soft spot for the Society of Jesus, even though my heart has been hardened by those modernized and modernist Jesuits who have abandoned the Holy Spirit for the spirit of the age. These Jesuits à la mode are wolves in shepherd’s clothing who betray the Mystical Body of Christ with a kiss, the Society of Judas masquerading as the Society of Jesus.

How little these Jesuits have in common with their heroic founders, St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier, or with those courageous Jesuit missionaries who evangelized the world with the Gospel. How little are they worthy of those Jesuit martyrs, Edmund Campion and Robert Southwell, who were tortured for their faith before putting to a slow, excruciating death by hanging, drawing and quartering. How little they have in common with those noble Jesuits of recent times who stayed true to the teachings of the Church in the midst of the madness that followed in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. With respect to this last group, we think perhaps of Father John Hardon (1914-2000), Father James V. Schall (1928-2019) and Father Paul Mankowski (1953-2020). May they rest in peace and may flights of angels sing them to their rest.

A fourth noble Jesuit who stands shoulder to shoulder with Fathers Hardon, Schall and Mankowski, the d’Artagnon to these three musketeers, is Father Joseph Fessio, a fighting figure of a priest who is still very much with us. His trailblazing story is told in a new biography by his friend and fellow Jesuit, Cornelius Michael Buckley.

Born on January 10, 1941 in Alameda, California, Joseph Fessio was a natural athlete who excelled in Little League baseball games as a child and continues to exercise to this day, even as he approaches his eighty-fourth birthday. Typical of his vigorous and rigorous approach to physical fitness was the epic journey he undertook with two friends during his sophomore year at college. They cycled from Chicago to Santa Clara, over the Rockies, covering 2,700 miles in twenty-seven days.

The irrepressible tenacity that he exhibited on the epic cycle ride serves as a metaphor for the similar tenacity that he has always shown in his life as a priest. In the novitiate and then as a newly-ordained priest, he studied under three of the twentieth century’s greatest theologians, Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, the last of whom became a lifelong friend. It is indeed in the light of Joseph Ratzinger that Father Fessio’s own apostolate is most clearly seen and understood. Like Ratzinger, he has been a fearless warrior in the fight against modernism and the abuse of the liturgy in the Church, making him many friends among the faithful but also many enemies, especially within the Society of Jesus. He has found himself not merely criticized by the Jesuit hierarchy but also ostracized and exiled. He has, however, never been silenced, nor has his irrepressible spirit ever been broken. On the contrary, he is one of those firebrand souls who seem to thrive in the midst of tribulation and in the face of challenges and resistance.

In 1978, the year in which St. John Paul II became pope and began to turn the tide on the modernists, Fr. Fessio founded Ignatius Press, which would become and remains the most dynamically orthodox of Catholic publishers, not merely in the United States but throughout the world. Whereas Fathers Hardon, Schall and Mankowski were writers, wielders of the pen, Fr. Fessio was a publisher who ensured that good writers had readers. Without him, many of the most powerful Catholic voices would have remained unheard.

Fr. Fessio was also a champion of authentic Catholic education, founding the Ignatius Institute at the University of San Francisco and then becoming chancellor of the newly founded Ave Maria University. It was through our mutual involvement with AMU that Fr. Fessio and I first met. He has since become a most valued friend. It is, therefore, as a friend that I conclude this portrait of a noble Jesuit with some personal memories.

I first came to Fr. Fessio’s attention in 1996, the year in which my first book, a biography of G. K. Chesterton, had been published by Hodder and Stoughton in the United Kingdom. Ignatius Press published the US edition and would become the American publisher of many of my other books. I am, therefore, personally indebted to Fr. Fessio for giving me a voice in the United States, without which I would not have been offered a position on the faculty of Ave Maria University.

Many of my most treasured memories are connected to hiking with him both in England and the United States. He and I led two walking pilgrimages to England, affording us the opportunity to hike in the Lake District to the summit of England’s highest mountain, as well as experiencing the open moors of the Peak District, and walking the holy mile barefoot to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. In the United States, we have hiked in Yosemite and in the hills north of San Francisco, as well as on the beaches of the Florida gulf coast.

The most treasured memory is, however, the day on which Fr. Fessio’s dear friend, Cardinal Ratzinger, was elected pope. Two weeks earlier, on April 2, 2005, when we heard the news of the death of St. John Paul II, I had gathered together with Fr. Fessio and a small group of students on the campus of AMU, in the open air, to pray for the pope. I don’t remember the actual prayers that were said but I do recall that we sang the Salve Regina, beseeching the intercession of the Blessed Virgin for the pope and for the Church. Then, on April 19, 2005, the day on which Pope Benedict XVI was elected, I was in the university cafeteria where a large group of students and faculty had already gathered, crowding around the TV screen. Hope and anxiety filled the room. The wait seemed interminable, the tension unbearable, the silence deafening. The doors opened. Another excruciating wait before anyone emerged. Eventually Cardinal Jorge Medina Estévez made the long-awaited announcement in Latin: Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: HABEMUS PAPAM! As the name of Joseph Ratzinger was proclaimed as the new Vicar of Christ, all heaven broke loose! Everyone in the room erupted in sheer joy and jubilation, cheering and dancing. I found myself doing an impromptu jig with the Dean, leaping around in each other’s arms in a most indecorous manner! As for Fr. Fessio, he broke down with uncontrollable tears of joy. For this great and faithful Jesuit, his friend and mentor’s election to the Chair of Peter was not only the answer to prayer but a dream come true. His personal joy was an additional reason for my own rejoicing, accentuating the sheer elation of the moment.

It doesn’t get much better than that, at least not on this side of the grave. Pope Benedict XVI has since crossed the threshold from the vale of tears to the place of peace and rejoicing which awaits all good and faithful servants of the Lord. I’m sure that Fr. Fessio has his own eye on the finishing line. May he run the final laps with the same faith and fortitude with which he has run the rest. And may he continue to inspire others to run the race as he his running it.

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The featured image, uploaded by TraLeSollecitudini, is a photo of Fr. Joseph Fessio, taken 9 December 2015. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.